Last Goodbye
by Zapenstap
Summary: 1xR, post series, incharacter romance with an angsty twist. One of my favorite stories. 'His eyes seemed to absorb the mysteries of space, deep blue and bright stars. Thinking of you is distracting...but I can't stop. '
1. Sweet

For some reason the first chapter of this story disappeared.  Awhile ago it was removed because it was mistakenly labeled NC-17.   What should be an "R" rating only applies to the second chapter.   Sadly, I did lose all of my lovely reviews…  I think I had around 70.  Thank you to all of you who reviewed before.  I will treasure the memories of reading them!   Maybe I will get some new ones now.   Anyway, enjoy the fic.  It's 1xR, takes place after the series and the "kiss" in Blind Target never occurred.  Please review!

Last Goodbye

By zapenstap

With hands tired from holding a pen, Relena delicately placed her potted plant out on the windowsill, hoping the poor struggling thing would soak up the rays of the midmorning summer sun more easily in such a position in her office.  As sunlight warmed the skin on the back of her hands, she couldn't avoid lifting her eyes to look out the window over the city and the countryside beyond.  The view was so lovely this time of year.  Green hills, red-painted rooftops and sparkling sea water dazzled her eyes.  The city seemed lazy this morning, the people moving about their Saturday sluggishly, but the view was gorgeous and soothing. 

Thoughts of anything peaceful or particularly lovely made her wonder idly about Heero and where he had gone since the end of her tour following the Mariemaia rebellion, but even as the thought occurred to her, she tucked it carefully away.  Hoping and wishing would do no good, but she could simply not be realistic with herself.

As she lifted the pot to reposition it slightly, water from the tray dripped onto her pants, soaking through the cream-colored material just above her knee.  Sighing, she left the plant in the sun and turned from the window.  Moving to stand in front of the stand mirror, she regarded her clothes with an objective eye.  The water spot was not that noticeable and would dry with a little time.  Other than the small mar, her outfit was perfectly clean and crisply ironed, from the lapels of her cream coat to the pale blue scarf knotted around her collarbone.  Her hair, long again, was pulled off her face and clasped behind her head.  She didn't look like she imagined herself.  Even without an outfit that (though classy and lovely) would have been more appropriate on a woman ten years her senior, she looked too mature to her own eyes.  Experimentally, she smiled at her reflection and watched her face come to life for a shining moment.  Laughing lightly, she shook her head at herself and made a few more funny faces just for good measure.  She wasn't unhappy at all, but sometimes she felt a little too severe for her a girl barely over twenty years old.

Turning away from the mirror with another smile, she leaned over her desk to grab hold of a stack of papers when there came a knock at her door.

"Vice Foreign Minister?"

"Please come in, Noin," Relena replied, straightening.  Noin opened the door and entered quietly in a business suit and heeled shoes, pearls in her ears and her hair combed to one side.  "Noin," Relena said with an answering smile, folding her hands in front of her, "you don't have to address me by any title. We've known each other too long for that sort of thing."

"My apologies, Relena," Noin said with a slight accent more pronounced of late.  "I wasn't sure you'd recognize my voice, though."

"Of course I do," Relena said with a smile as she turned, her hair whipping around behind her.  "Is there something I can do for you?" she asked politely, though it would be nice to hear that her brother's fiancé and one of her closer friends merely wanted to chat for a change.

"I'm afraid so," Nojn replied, but her gravity almost sounded in jest.  "I come bearing a message."  Noin's lips were quirked in a strange sort of smile.  Still, her eyebrows were lowered in something akin to worry or anxiety, as if whatever news excited her also made her apprehensive.

Noin was not a message carrier for her.  Someone she knew must have stopped her and asked this favor.  "What is it, Noin?"

"There's somebody here to see you.  In the gardens."

Relena frowned in consternation.   She made a mental checklist of all the people with whom she might be asked to interview today that were also acquainted with Noin, but she could only come with a minimal handful.  "Mariemaia?" she guessed at last.  "I already know Une is bringing her here today, but I thought they had planned on some time after lunch."

"No," Noin said softly, and gave Relena such a pointed look that Relena immediately understood.  She always knew.

"Heero," she breathed almost inaudibly, and almost forgot Noin was in the room.

Her heart had almost stopped beating.  Upon arriving at the conclusion she felt as if she had been cheated, but she couldn't explain why.  All she knew was that she suddenly felt different.

It had been more that a year since she had seen him.

She still remembered those fateful days just after Christmas, after she had caught him in his sudden exhaustion, falling forward into her arms.  She had never felt so wonderful as she did that moment, holding him and knowing that it was all over, that it was finished for him.   All the confliction with the kindness in his heart and the deeds he must perform would stop being a torture to him.  

It was one of the only times in all her life she had seen him vulnerable. When he had first appeared in the wreckage of Mariemaia's underground castle she had almost thought he was a ghost or a vision, speaking the way he did, so obviously exhausted.  When he fallen forward something had jump-started her system and the wires in her mind told her he was really there, and that he was in need.  She still remembered the way his hair felt under her hand and his head leaning heavily against her chest.

He didn't speak of it afterwards.  She wasn't sure he remembered it at all.  He might have been unconscious when she caught him; it was hard to tell.   But he had stayed for awhile, guarding her as she toured the world to speak about the value of peace and advocating her plan to reform the face of Mars to make it habitable.  During those days she had seen some of him, though he always seemed a little stand-offish.  She had hoped he would stay around, but she wasn't really surprised when he disappeared not long after her last speech.

"Relena?"

She realized she had been staring at the ground with her fist clenched over her breast and looked up, feeling somewhat like a fool.  "You said he's in the gardens?"

Noin smiled at her.  "That's right."

She nodded.  Gathering herself, she moved past Noin and out of her office.  There didn't seem to be any need to explain that she had to go speak with him, or to say anything at all really.  Noin understood.  She had loved her brother in silent patience long enough to understand.

When she reached the gardens her chest felt tight.  Noin had not actually said it was Heero, but if it was, she wondered why he had come.  There were, of course, important political things being done, but there always were.  She feared some new terror he had come to warn her about, but she would almost accept anything that brought him close, just so she could see how he was doing.

Her thick-heeled shoes clicked along the cobblestone walkways as she passed through the gardens.  Visions of gorgeous flowerbeds, climbing vines and shaped trees danced in and out of her mind's sight, but she hardly paid them much attention.  Surrounded by a thousands sights that should distract her eyes and intoxicate her soul, she had eyes for only thing.

It half startled her to see him.  She stopped, swaying in her surprise.  He was waiting by a fence, standing straight up and down with his arms at his sides, wearing that dark blue jacket that made his eyes seem to blaze in his face.  She had stopped at the corner, a stone clattering out from underneath her foot.  He raised his head at the sound and for a moment or an hour neither of them moved or said anything.  At length, his eyes glanced off her and he beckoned her to join him with a gesture that was almost jerky.  Ducking her head, she acquiesced and moved beside him.  Being so close after so long felt so strange and she couldn't manage to look at him directly once she was by his side.

They walked side-by-side through the gardens in silence, both looking straight ahead.  As the strangeness of his being there faded, Relena regained her composure and began to cycle through her mind possible ideas for what it was he wanted to say to her.  She waited patiently, stepping in time with him. When after several minutes he still didn't say anything, she gathered her courage and opened her mouth, turning to look at him.  

The sight of his profile stopped her tongue.  For a moment she couldn't do anything but trace the lines of his face and hair.  "Heero," she said at last, and though it came out smoothly, she felt the gasp in her chest as the air in the lungs forced out the sound.  "What was it you wanted to talk to me about?  I haven't seen you in so long."

His eyes flickered and he gestured to one of the stone benches that dotted the walkway every few hundred meters.  Obeying his request, she sat down, drawing her legs to one side, ankles and knees pressed together. He sat beside her, his hands pressing against the stone on either side of him.  She watched him silently, wondering how he was doing, trying to gage if there were shadows under his eyes like she had seen during the war, but he seemed fine.  After a moment, he turned to her.

"I've been trying to live in this peaceful world you…we've…created," he said in those low, caressing tones, staring straight ahead.  "It's not easy."

She dropped her eyes, knowing that neither of them could really think of him as a soldier anymore.  And she understood his confusion.  If he wasn't that, what was he?  For awhile there had been things to do, investigations to make, weapons to destroy, but things were settling; they had been pretty settled for awhile. "What have you been doing, Heero?"

"Odd jobs for the most part," he said, still hardly seeming to blink.  "I went to school for awhile, but I didn't come to talk about that." He paused, his words seeming to fall into an empty space.  "I had to convince Wufei that the war we fought was with this goal in mind, but now I find myself more lost than I ever was, and I felt pretty lost before."

She understood.  She wanted to say something to comfort him, but she couldn't think of anything meaningful to say that he had not heard already, that she had probably told him at some point.  She wondered if he had come to her looking for a job, but the truth was she didn't need to be protected anymore. The peace would last at least through her lifetime if she worked hard, and no one was interested in killing her any longer.

He seemed to be able to read her thoughts in her face.  Nor did he look at all surprised.  Of course he would know how things were around her.

"It's not something you have to worry about," he added when she didn't answer.  

"Why did you come to see me?"

He stared straight ahead again.  "I left kind of abruptly last time.  I guess I just wanted to see how you were doing."

"I'm doing well," she said, and wanted to say that she wished he was doing better, but she could not say that.  "I wish you hadn't gone," she said instead, "without saying goodbye."

"I'm sorry," he said. "I owe you a lot.  It was rude of me."

She looked down at her hands, not sure what to make of that.  "You owe me?" she said in some confusion.  Smiling, she looked back into his face.  "Heero, you don't owe me anything."

"I owe you thanks," he said persistently.  "I just wanted to tell you that."

"Thanks?"  

"Yeah.  For caring about me.  For worrying, like you said before."

Her tongue clove in her mouth.  It had been a long time ago when she said that, years ago, and it didn't help that it was even more true today.  She had asked him to let her care about him, to let her worry.  He had let her sleep on his shoulder.  Later, had he meant to kiss her?  He had caught her hand and pulled her close.  There had seemed some sort of resolution in his eyes before he closed them and leaned forward, but the kiss never came.  She didn't remember what happened, except that one moment he was there and the next he was gone and it was back to business as usual.  

"Heero, I will always care about you, and I don't need thanks for it," she said as expressively as she could.  Deliberately, she put one hand on the bench between them, half reaching out to him.  She didn't touch him, though.  "I always have."

"I know," he said, and directed his eyes away from her.  There seemed to be a tenseness about the way he was sitting, staring straight ahead again.  "I just wanted to thank you for it.  It's meant a lot more to me than I thought it could."

She fumbled, looking for something to say, to change the topic or somehow abate the nervousness that seemed to be in his face, however sternly it was set.  It looked like a mask most of the time, but she could read his feelings sometimes, if she paid attention to the little things, especially his eyes.  "Heero," she said, and her words tripped out of her mouth.  "Have you been…" she didn't know how to put it.  Was he being social, making friends, seeing girls?  She had heard rumors that he had been seen in the company of girls on occasion, at bars or clubs or other late-night hangouts.  Duo said he spent a lot of time going to social places alone.  Strangely, it did not make her jealous.  She wanted him to be whole; that was all.  And if she had feelings for him, well, what did that really matter in the long run, if all of this was for his sake?  "Have you been doing okay? I know you said you've been working and it's been hard to adjust to the times, but have you been hanging out with the others, meeting people...girls? "

His expression looked like winter, lonely and chill and desolate.  "Love is a strange thing," he said as if it was a discovery he had just made in reaction to her words.  She felt herself become very and stiff and cold as he said it, almost leaden.  Something like betrayal or envy or anger stirred in the lowest resources of her gut, but it dwindled into nothing in less than a moment.  He lifted his head to the sky.  "I never thought about it much when I was training, girls I mean.  I never thought I would live long enough for it to matter."  

Why did he have to tell her this?  Still, she listened, her heart beating for him.  She wanted him to be whole.  

He turned to look at her.  "I think something is wrong with me," he said.  "I've been looking for alternative distractions to what I feel, something less confusing.  It is…" he shook his head. "Is it love?  I don't really know anything about it.  I've tried other things, but I can't make it go away and I can't make sense of it.  I've never felt like this before.  I don't know what to do.  Relena…"

His eyes seeming to be drinking her in and abruptly she realized he was talking about her, not some other girl he had met at some late-night hangout.  Her heart froze and then fluttered to life, beating erratically.  She couldn't have kept the repressed feelings from her eyes if she wanted to.  Neither could she speak.

He must have seen something in her face, because his eyes changed.  He ceased to look through her and seemed to be really looking at her, seeking some sort of entrance or receptacle in her face. "I can't stop thinking about you," he said in those same solid tones.  From his voice, she would not have been able to make sense of his words, but with his eyes… "I don't know what it is," he said.  "It's not like it was with any of the other girls.  I don't think about them the way I think about you.  It's so simple the way I think about you, so simple and so complicated. I don't think of you the way I think about them either.  I don't desire you in any way other than to go on thinking about you."  He paused, suddenly hesitant.  "Do you think about me?"

"Everyday," she said before she could wonder if it was wise.

"What is it I'm feeling?" he asked her, as if he really expected she knew the answer.  "Is it what they talk about when they talk about love?  Or is it something else?  Those other girls…" he shook his head as if dispelling some useless memory.  "It was different with them.  They taught me things, but it's you that I…  I didn't even know most of their names."

What had he done with those girls?  Again, she wasn't jealous.  She didn't have the left-over emotional capacity to incorporate jealousy.  "I love you, Heero," she said, and it didn't feel at all strange to say it.

He didn't react in any way that she could tell.  "I was never made for this," he said.  "I don't think…"

She was almost angry.  "Yes you are, Heero," she said, almost pleading with him to believe it.  "If you feel…"

His eyes caught hers and suddenly he was leaning into her.  She felt his hand cover her hand on the bench, his fingers overlapping her fingers.  As his face neared hers, she closed her eyes, a little scared by his proximity.  Then his lips brushed hers.  When they did, she felt as if a stream of energy flowed from him to her, pouring into her mouth.  His lips were soft, softer than she expected, and gentle like a butterfly's wings.  Behind them there was heat, from the breath in his mouth and possibly the blood in his heart.  And there was moisture, a sweet taste of him that once tasting she wanted to taste again.  He seemed very close to her, his body leaning into her space, his hand perfectly still on her hand.

After the briefest touch he pulled away and met her in the eyes for a brief moment.  They stared at one another in silence and she couldn't halt the floodgate of emotion that must be drowning her eyes.  Slowly, he came back, as if he were attached to a string that she had pulled, and his lips claimed hers again.  All three sensations, flesh and heat and moisture collided into her at once and she accepted them all greedily.  Her body was trembling as he continued to kiss her, her chest shaking.  She wanted him to lift a hand to her face, pull her close, touch her body, wrap his arms around her, but he didn't move.

She didn't know when he pulled away, but it couldn't have been that long.  Maybe a few seconds only, though it might have been hours in her memory.

"Stay awhile," she asked.

He stood up before the words were out of her mouth and her head turned to follow him.  He clenched his hands into fists and stared beyond her for a moment.   "I can't," he said.  "There's so much I don't understand.  I'm just trying to get through it, life I mean."

"Let me help you."

He didn't answer, but he looked over his shoulder, away from her.

She sat up, straightening her back in one motion without bending her spine.  "Are you going then?"

"Yeah," he said, turning back to look her in the face one last time.  "I just…wanted to know."  When she opened her mouth her overrode her hastily. "Goodbye, Relena."

He walked away from her like something out of dream and she was powerless to stand or speak or do anything except watch him go.  He wanted to know what?  If he loved her?  Did he?  Everything in her being screamed yes, cried it, but he was leaving, and she wasn't sure she would ever see him again.

Ah… the angst, the poetry, the drama of romance blighted by the misfortune of uncompromising lovers separate by… uh, anyway, leave a review.


	2. Intimacy

Last Goodbye

Chapter 2

By zapenstap

It was a warm evening in June, the kind where going outdoors is like walking into a garden, when the air is sweet and thick but not muggy, and comfortably cool compared to the day. It was a perfect night for a party, for dancing and food and festivities, and it was held at the Peacecraft manor. 

Relena's brother had invited her, though she was a Peacecraft too technically. Still, the house belonged to Milliardo and Peacecraft was the name he went by now, not her. Relena had rooms here when she wanted them, furnished with her things, but she did not consider it her own home. She just happened to be staying with her brother and Noin for a couple of weeks. Thankfully, she was also not the host, nor the guest of honor at this party. Her resulting freedom during such a night was wonderful.

She passed the windows that overlooked the balcony and caught her image in the reflection of the glass. After a full week of work, it was nice to dress up and also to blend in. Her dress was a pale rose color made of satin and hung to the floor, the hem brushing the toes of her heeled shoes. The sleeves were straps because of the season, but the neckline was relatively high and straight across. Though form-fitting, it did not hug her body too tightly. She had threaded pearls into her hair and had considered piling it up on top of her head, but had instead left it down. In some ways that made her feel young again, or at least younger, and tonight she liked that.

Men did not think her young. In the last year and a half she had learned that. Though tonight she had been asked to dance several times, and had obliged most of the requests in order to be polite, she still thought mostly about Heero, even though it had been months since he had said goodbye to her that day in the garden. For some reason she could not persuade herself to forget him. He was out there somewhere.

Her reflection looked back at her and she wondered why looking at herself like this was like looking at some strange young girl she hardly knew. That day Heero showed up at her door and told her he loved her she had remembered things about herself she thought she had forgotten. Gingerly she touched her lips with her fingers, feeling their texture and trying to remember the kiss he had given her, the way it had felt to kiss him, to have is face to close to hers, to hear him breathing…

It was just a kiss. It was not a contract. She dropped her hand and stared a moment longer at the glass, looking through her image and at the night sky beyond, watching the stars twinkle in a blanket of black and blue that stretched on forever. 

He was gone.

Heero.

It had always been just a name, like a label she used to describe him, and an inadequate one at that. So much more went into him then that name. So much passed through her mind when she saw him. Little things, the way his dark hair looked, the arch of his back and neck, the muscles in his shoulders and chest, his height, the angular dark blue pools of his eyes… all of that described him physically, but there was so much more. His spirit resonated with the way he moved to the glances he gave to the words he spoke to the way she sometimes felt she could perceive his thoughts.

Of course he was just a boy.

It was hard to remember that. He was a boy she loved certainly, and yet, because of that she sometimes felt he was the only boy in the entire world. At least, he was the only one she wanted to get close to, to touch, to speak with about anything (it hardly mattered what) for as long as he would allow it. 

"Relena?"

She turned at the sound of her brother's voice. "I'm sorry, Millardo. Were you calling me?"

"No," he said in that gruff voice he sometimes used, and looked away from her, his hair falling over his eyes. "I was just wondering how you were doing."

She smiled and overlapped her hands, gloved up to the elbows in white for so formal an occasion. "I'm quite well. It is a lovely party. Is Noin enjoying herself?"

"She seems to be," he replied. "Why don't you come out on the dance floor, Relena?"

"I will," she promised. "In a moment. I was looking at the stars." 

"I'll be in the dining hall for awhile if you need me," he said. "There's a few catering issues that I need to attend to."

She watched him go with a light heart, thinking again how nice it was to be merely a body in a scene such as this, a figure without concern for the condition of the guests or the lighting or the food, nor the center of attention. Casting another glance over her shoulder at the night sky, she wandered back into the main room where couples danced old dances to the soft music played by the band in the corner. She walked along the outside rim of the dance floor, weaving in and out of bodies as she watched the dancing and was occasionally greeted by an acquaintance. Another change of pace was the few people who knew her here. She supposed more must recognize her, but Milliardo's guests were not for the most part the politicians and business people she knew best.

Eventually she came to the edge of the dance floor, the corner of the room where the ballroom and the dining hall met. In the next room there were tables with punch and wine and platters of food. Turning her back to it, she watched the people dancing with pleasure, the way they moved around one another in gracious circles, smiling and perspiring lightly. When the song ended and the couples stepped apart and a few people clapped both on the floor and in the audience. Some people changed partners, others moved off the dance floor and most everyone chatted in the interlude. Smiling, Relena turned away, deciding to investigate this catering problem her brother was having and perhaps have a word with Noin. 

A hand clasped her own, strong fingers wrapping around her gloved one gently but firmly. Her mouth opened in surprise and she turned around again only to find another hand settle on her waist and her entire body being led out onto the dance floor.

"Heero," she said in disbelief, staring at him in astonishment.

When the music struck up, she was dancing before she had time to process what had happened. Her left hand was still clasped in his right and her other hand had come up automatically to rest on his shoulder before she met him in the face. When she managed to look into his eyes, she could hardly speak. He wasn't watching her either, his eyes downcast as they moved with the music. His face was as flat as a board. He lifted his head slowly and only smiled slightly after she smiled at him, but something in his face told her he might have been frightened until she did.

_Get a hold of yourself, Relena._

"Heero," she said, "I thought I would never see you again."

When they had last danced like this he had been fifteen and a soldier on a dangerous and secret mission. She had been one of his targets. They had never finished that dance. Now he was the same, and yet different. He wasn't innocent, nor was he jaded, and all she could think about to describe him was that he seemed taller, stronger, and older than before. Was he still lost? 

He didn't reply to her unspoken questions. Where had he been? Why was he back? Did he still love her? But his eyes captivated her so much the questions could hardly take shape in her mind. Everything he was and did captivated her. Last time he had come they had not touched except for that kiss. He was not wearing gloves. She wished she wasn't either. She had never held his hand before, and always wanted to.

"What are you doing here?"

"I heard you would be here," he said, and his voice, deep and dark and always seeming to speak to something far away was like a potion. It awoke something fierce and needy and desperate in her. For no reason at all she began to tremble.

Maybe the music changed and the dancing with it. Maybe he noticed or maybe he felt something too, but abruptly she was pulled in closer. Her heart fluttered as it became easier to drape her arm over his and bring her hand up by his neck. His arm tightened around her back too, enclosing her within his personal space. Their left hands remained locked, but drawn in between them. Slowly their faces passed each other until her vision of him became his shoulder and his left ear and his neck, which she could see more of by looking down his collar.  As her thoughts raced, her heart beat wildly in her chest, and yet she felt so calm.

The soft music kept playing, the sound of rippling notes like a harp cascading over her ears. There may have been other couples in the room that drew close, but she didn't look at anyone else. She could scarcely remember to breathe. Without even thinking of it, she rested her head on his left shoulder and touched the base of his neck with her hand, caressing his skin softly. In response, he squeezed her, his hand rubbing her back as he pulled her in even closer.

She wanted to say his name and ask the question buried in her heart. She almost felt she might cry, but she only stood there. Gradually she became aware that they had stopped moving with the music, that he was merely holding her now in something sweeter and more intimate than a hug. She didn't know what possessed her when she slowly and softly kissed his neck.

He pulled back then, blinking his eyes at her. 

"I'm sorry," she said immediately. She wished she hadn't done it. The way he was looking at her almost drove her into the floor. There was so much there she didn't understand, and she knew she might just have spoiled something.

The grip he had on her hand tightened, but he looked away from her, his eyes hooded under his dark hair. "We need to talk somewhere," he asked quietly in that same voice.

She didn't know what to feel but she nodded, grasping his hand and leading him away. He followed her almost gracefully. They passed out of the dance floor and went upstairs in silence, weaving their way between the people chatting on the staircase and on the inside balcony that overlooked the dance floor. She led him to the only place she knew people wouldn't wander, her own room. She was certain no one paid attention to them coming upstairs, not that it would matter anyway. She could tell he just had something to say to her.

Once inside, she released his hand shut the doors. It felt strange to have him there, but there was no where else they could really talk without being disturbed, and for some reason it felt nice to have him in her rooms. He had never been in such an intimate place of hers before. They always met in formal locations or secluded mutual ground. Her room in Millardo's manor was rather small, with only a desk, a dresser, a closet, a bookcase and a white canopied bed all crammed into a small space. Relena sat on the bed, both feet touching the floor. Heero took the chair by the desk and pulled in up in front of her. Calmly, she took her gloves off and waited for him to speak.

For awhile neither of them said anything. After a minute Heero took off his black dress coat and hung it over the back of the chair. Then he settled his elbows on his knees, his fingers interlaces in front of him.

"Why did you come back?" Relena whispered with her hands on her knees. "I thought when you said goodbye…" she stopped.  "It was so long ago."

"I didn't mean to come back," he replied. He looked like he wanted to say more, but there were shadows lurking in his eyes. "Do you remember what I said before?"

How could she forget? "That you love me, Heero?" she asked.

"I don't know what love is," he evaded. "But I think about you." From the way he spoke it was like he wasn't talking about something personal at all, but was explaining some scenario or puzzle. He used a normal tone of voice, though Heero's normal voice with its dark and mysterious quality could make anything sound like it held volumes of hidden feeling. "These kinds of emotions are foreign," he said in that same explanatory tone, "but I had to act on them if I was to understand them. I thought when I last saw you that that would be the end of it, but the feelings didn't go away." With this last his voice dropped and he glanced aside as if he was talking to himself.

"Heero," she said, and cleared her throat. "When I last saw you I thought you said…" she became tongue-tied, confused, but she drew her knees together and somehow managed to look into his face.  "I thought you meant that you loved me."

For a moment she thought she had struck a cord by the way his shoulders tensed slightly, but when he stood smoothly out of the chair and walked away from her she wasn't so sure. He moved to stand beside the small little window by the bookshelf, pulling the curtains aside with one hand. "There's lots of other girls, Relena," he said in straight tones. "I've been with lots of other girls since… since the end of the war."

"I gathered that last time you were here," she said quietly. She wondered if she should feel hurt, but she didn't. "Did you sleep with them?" she asked, occupying herself by settling her dress around her legs. There was absolutely no reason she should be able to ask him that question, but…

"Yeah," he said. "Some of them." He let the curtain fall. 

She didn't say anything for a moment. She wasn't sure what he was getting at. Was he apologizing because he loved her or because he thought she expected something different from him? "How come?" she asked.

He hedged a little, his face half lost in shadow and half-lighted by the light from the window. "It's what my body was telling me was natural," he replied. "They offered. I don't know."

Again she didn't say anything. She understood what had happened now. Rumor said he had gone to social places alone, but rarely left alone. No doubt he wandered around or stood in a corner until some girl drew him out. Of course they would; he was attractive and possessed that mysterious quality. Other girls would pick up on his kindness too. Maybe he never intended to end up in bed with any of them, but if they were aggressive and his body responded… Well of course his body would respond. He was a young man, handsome, lonely, and he had the same needs as any other man his age. No wonder other girls had found him readily agreeable. She wondered how it was for him the first time, and felt a touch of sadness for him. It couldn't have been that lovely. Satisfying maybe, and she supposed instinct and his natural sense of efficiency would get him through it with relatively positive results, but she doubted it did his heart any good. Such intimacy without feeling might only make him retract more. Just from the way he looked now she could tell he didn't love any of those girls, maybe not even care about them at all. Of course, they probably felt the same way. It saddened her. There was a time no one could get close to him physically _or_ emotionally. Had he conditioned himself to physical intimacy without feeling now? No doubt he had been satisfying his physical needs without expectation for his emotional side. But why he thought it concerned her, she wasn't sure.

Except that he said he thought about her all the time. And he had thanked her for caring about him. Maybe that was that one string that kept him from sinking into a place where there were only physical needs to fulfill. He wondered if he loved her so he came to her and kissed her and then left, hoping for what? That the feeling would go away? But it hadn't, so now he was back, explaining, or trying to. Expecting what?

"I don't know what else to say," he said when she didn't reply. "It wasn't what I expected really. Have you ever…?"

The question hung there.

"Have I ever slept with anyone, Heero?" she finished for him. "What do you want me to say?"

He just looked at her. "I don't know," he said. "I guess you're too beautiful not to have by now." 

Her heart clenched in her chest and she fought to breathe. Again he spoke without much emotion to his tone, looking away as soon as he had said it. She had the urge to wrap her arms around him, but she didn't move.

"It was a lot stranger than I thought," he continued. "There was nothing there but the physical closeness…" He shook his head as if chasing away dark memories.  "But it was pleasurable. I expected that. And once I did it once I couldn't stop."

So factual. Almost scientific. Her heart went out to him, but there was nothing she could really say. He looked so lost.

"Is this what you wanted to talk to me about?" she asked him.

He turned away from the window, still standing some distance from her. "I came to finish that dance," he said quietly. "I came to tell you that I wish I could love you, but I don't know how. All I really understand is the battle. There's nothing to do now that the fighting is over. Sometimes I wish I had died back there like Dr. J intended. He never prepared me for life, you know. I don't know how to live in a world like this. I just go from day to day working and eat and sleeping… the girls, they're just like that."

"Heero," she said, and she couldn't keep the anguish out of her voice. Slowly, she stood up and approached him. "Do you love me?"

"I don't know," he said coldly, looking out the window again. His eyebrows were scrunched over his eyes, his face looking strangely jumbled. "When I kissed you before it was like I had been set on fire, but it made me feel sick inside." His expression changed into something like anger. "You make me feel weak, and I hate that."

She recoiled, stepping back a little. 

"I felt alive, though," he added softly. "For a little while anyway. Then I just… ached again.  Thinking of you is too distracting, but I can't stop." He turned away from the window and passed her toward the door. "We should go back to the party.  I'm sorry I came here like this.  I don't know why I did."

She realized he was apologizing for unloading all of his problems onto her, but it hardly registered.  He couldn't stop thinking about her.  She knew she at least was hopelessly in love.  She moved to the door mechanically, walking up to stand beside him. She wished she could say something to unburden him, to help him somehow, but she hardly understood anything to any great degree at that moment. She knew he just needed to talk to someone, and that he knew she cared.

She put her hand on the door handle and then stopped. She could hear the music coming up from below, the gentle sound of a rhythmic waltz playing downstairs and drifting up to her room, muffled by the closed door. "Heero," she said with a smile. "I enjoyed dancing with you. You know I don't mind hearing what you are going through."

He was looking at her strangely, his arms at his sides. She couldn't help looking at him, tracing the lines of his body discreetly, analyzing the buttons of his dress shirt idly. His body was so well toned and shaped. Distractedly, she wondered about those other girls, what they had seen and thought and experienced of him, but she brushed the thought out of her mind. Blushing, she turned the handle of the door.

"You don't?" he said, but it almost didn't sound like a question.

"No," she said. "I think about you all the time too. I wonder how you are doing…" she trailed off. "I wish I could help you adjust to these times of peace."

"They're wonderful," he said with a dark, almost caressing tone. "I don't want the battles to continue, Relena. I just don't know what to do with myself now that they're done."

"I understand," she said, and made again to open the door.

He covered her hand gently on the door handle, holding it in place. "Wait," he murmured in a dark, quiet voice that was barely a whisper, like a breath of air from a dark cave. "On the dance floor," he said. You…"

She lowered her head. Turning, she smiled at him sadly and reached up to touch his neck, indicating the spot where her lips had brushed his skin at the end of the dance. "I'm still in love with you," she said softly. "I'm sorry." She wanted to say his name, but was checked by the fact that she didn't know what it _really_ was. 

His hand slowly slid down her arm to her elbow and she began breathing harder. Gently he turned her and pressed one hand softly against the door, his arm just by her ear. Then he leaned in to kiss her, his eyes fluttering closed. But she caught the emotions in them before they shut and when their lips met.  She almost melted into the wall.

She lost most of her thoughts when absorbed in his mouth. She wanted him to go on kissing her forever, which they seemed to be doing. The hand that held her elbow wrapped around her upper back gently, the hand against the door slid down to her waist.  She was in his arms. The feeling was sweet intensity. She wanted to shout or cry or explode as he kissed her, his neck turning and meeting her lips at different angles and then exploring her cheeks and chin. She couldn't help touching his face.

He jerked a little when she did, as if he just realized what was happening, that he had kissed her again, and was holding her tightly too. She trembled in his embrace, content and yet yearning for more. Her hands slid down his face to his neck and then to his chest. Almost unconsciously, she undid the first button of his dress shirt. She froze in shock when she realized what she had done.

He choked, pulling back. "Relena," he said, and then trailed off as she stared at him in silence, not knowing what she had done nor sure of what she wanted, except that her mind was finding trails and pathways through and around her inhibitions.  The question, or at least the curiosity, must have been in her eyes.  "No," he said without emotion or feeling except for a tinge of breathy tension. "I didn't come here for this."

Looking into his face, she realized he didn't want to think of her in relation to those other girls he didn't care about.

"I know," she said, and said it with more surety and calmness then she expected. "I wouldn't have… I'm sorry," she said, embarrassed. "I don't feel that way about you." She wasn't sure what she meant by that except that she didn't _want_ him to think she was like those other girls. 

He stared at her. "Do you…?" he asked almost without any emotion, unless it was surprise. Maybe that wasn't what he meant to say either.

Her head was spinning. "I think it would be okay," she stumbled, staring into his eyes, and wondered where that had come from. Heero Yuy was standing in her room, leaning over her with his coat off and his first button undone, watching her every twitch with those all-seeing, unblinking eyes.

Maybe this was just meant to be. Maybe it was unavoidable.  Maybe it would be her only chance.

"I care so much about you," she assured him. "I want to if you want to."

Maybe he meant to turn her down by the way he gripped her about the waist as if he was going to pick her up and move her, but then his hands flattened against her skin while he leaned in to kiss her again. She accepted his kiss readily, and instead of tasting honey, it was something more like liquid lightning. Breathing and watching each other's eyes, she began to work at his clothes and he at hers. They pulled off each other's garments in silence, almost as if they were preparing for something else entirely. He hardly touched her while he unzipped her dress and unclasped the strand of pearls from her hair. When she was stripped down to a silk slip and camisole, she led him to the bed, stepping backward as she worked at his belt.  He kept whispering under his breath, over and over, asking if it was okay, telling her it wasn't what he had come for, but by then all she could do was nod and touch him.

Heero pushed her softly down on the bed by the shoulders and for some reason it didn't really feel that strange. A moment later, he had crawled up beside her on his knees. He removed her undergarments by sliding his hands up her body, removing the filmy white silk and then attacking her remaining undergarments. Her breathing quickened a little, but she kept her eyes focused on his face. He didn't seem surprised or awed or startled by her nakedness at all.

"You look exactly like I imagined," he said softly to her unanswered question. She tried not to stare or think too much. Instead she sat up and kissed him, sliding her hands around his neck and back. He grasped her arms, his slender body bending over her, laying her back against the pillows. It felt so normal.

"What if someone comes in?" he whispered worriedly into her ear. Those dark, mellow tones were a little strained. "Zechs…"

She stretched her neck and gasped. "No," she said, and he shuddered as she kissed him again. "He won't. But we have to be quiet."

There was something mutual and silent in the way they touched each other, careful and thoughtful and hesitant, yet confident and thorough. When she began to pay more particular attention to his body, he murmured something by her ear, speaking to himself, but whatever it was didn't seem to have much concentration behind it.

"Heero," she breathed in his ear suddenly. "I'm not on any birth control. Do you have any protection…?"

He stopped, and she thought it there was no solution he would have gotten up and left her in an instant. "I didn't plan on this," he said. "I never thought I…"

"Hold on," she interrupted, "I do."  That was the last thing she said to him that made any real sense.

She could hear the music downstairs through the bed and the floor, and it registered in her ears like a harmony. She remembered being in his embrace, his face hovering over hers, his eyes closed, his eyebrows scrunched and drawn low, his mouth slightly parted. He trembled to kiss her and she could hardly think herself, but she whispered and instructed in encouragement with a voice that sounded strained even to her own ears. 

When it was over she smoothed damp hair away from his face and tried to make sense of what had happened and how she felt about it.  She felt physically safe, emotionally alive, content and happy, but nervous and thoughtful and unable to take her eyes off of him.

"Do you want me to hold you?" he asked, and his lips brushed against her temple as she muttered something about not caring, yet she sighed when his arms went around her waist and he pulled her close to him.  With a little effort and soft touched, she pulled down the covers to the bed and slipped under the sheets with him.  Under the covers, he softly caressed her skin and kissed her shoulders until she fell asleep. 

The next morning the sunlight streaming in through the window told her that it was indeed morning. The first thing she noticed was that her bed was empty, Heero's clothes were gone and there was a small note written in a precise hand lying on the pillow next to her. Sitting up, she picked up the note and stared at it for a minute in confusion, trembling from head to toe and unable to make sense of her thoughts, much less her feelings.

When her mind settled, she grimly tossed the covers back, got out of bed and pulled her robe off the bedpost, throwing it around her shoulders. 

A knock came at her door.

"Relena?" a woman's voice came.

"I'm in my robe, Noin," she said, "but you can come in."

Lucrezia Noin opened the door a crack. "Are you all right? You left the party early last night. No one could find you."

Relena smiled at her. "I'm fine," she said. "I just tired of the crowd."

She nodded. "Several people saw you with a young man last night. Who was he?"

"No one," she replied. "I only danced with him once."

Noin sighed. "Not still moping about Heero, are you?"

"A little," she admitted.

Noin shook her head. "Well, not much I can say about it that I haven't already said, but I wish he'd stop being afraid and just…" she stopped.  "Sorry. I don't mean to pry into your personal life."

"It's all right. I wish he would too."

Smiling, Noin shut the door softly.

Relena moved to the window, looking out to the horizon. The note was still crumpled in her hand. Lifting it, she read the words again, wondering how she should feel, what she should understand. What had been his thought process? How had he felt? Had he agonized over those few short phrases? Had they taken much effort to write down? Yesterday felt like a dream. She couldn't help smiling just a little, but she also couldn't stop the tears that came to her eyes.

_I don't regret anything, but I'm afraid fighting is all I can do. I love you. I'm sorry. _

_Heero_.

Lifting her head, she wiped her eyes and smiled. "Goodbye, Heero," she whispered.


	3. in the end

Last Goodbye

Chapter 3

By Zapenstap

Heero sat on a barstool in a cozy café in the late morning, his coat hanging loosely on his shoulders even though it was a hot day.  His cup of coffee sat untouched by his right hand and he stared more or less at nothing, though people shied away because his eyes, sharp and observant, seemed to penetrate through everything.  They actually penetrated inward this morning, sifting through the memories and emotions he could neither escape nor bury.

He tried to study them objectively.

The images were of Relena's bare skin as he held her under the blankets, cool and smooth and pale, pure like her heart, with his darkened cheek against her shoulders as she slept.  He had stared into the cool darkness with his arms around that woman for so long he had lost all his thoughts, content to breathe in the scent of her soul and just rest.  

He knew even before she told him it was okay that it should not have happened at all, but the opportunity had been too much and he had given in with a willingness that surprised him only after the glow following the act had faded.  The problem was that he knew he could not take care of her, even if he cared.  He had meant to slip away quietly as soon as she had dropped off, but the comfort of their spent bodies touching so intimately had somehow lulled him asleep too.  It was a miracle he had awoken in the early morning hours and had been able to steal away in the darkness.  He had dressed in absolute silence, prowling in the dark of the room like a cat, terrified she would wake and he would be confronted with those eyes of hers shining in the night. The moonlight streaming through the window had cast silver streams on her body and he had lingered in the doorway watching her sleep without him.  It had been hard to leave her like that, tucked under the sheets with his scent all over her.  He had wanted so much to stay.

He couldn't get his mind off of her.

In the café, weeks after that night, he took a sip of his coffee and was only mildly surprised to find that it had gotten cold.  There had been two other girls since, one he had had before and lain with again the night following his night with Relena to get his mind off her, and another he had somehow fallen in with last night.  He didn't know the second girl's name.  She thought he was attractive and she looked nothing like Relena; that was enough for him.  The first girl, the one he had now been with twice, looked almost exactly like Relena, enough that he could almost pretend, but though he had stayed the night with her it was simply not the same and he told her so in the morning.  The girl merely muttered that he was her weirdest lover and went back to sleep.   He didn't plan on seeing her again.  He felt filthy thinking about this confused and lonely aspect of his life, yet he accepted it without reservation.   At the time, he had thought he needed it for purely fundamental reasons.  He liked the way he felt when a girl touched him and the way it felt to touch a girl.  He had grown used to the intimacy of sex, but only with Relena had it meant something.

Lifting his head, he stared out across the room.  

_I could go back…_he evaluated deliberately_.  I could find her and…but no._

He should have stuck with what he understood.

Death was what he had wanted all his life, the peace that came with the end.  For a long time all he had wanted was to stop breathing, to stop thinking, to stop feeling.  He had never feared death, not even a painful death.  All through the war he had expected it to swoop down upon him and end it all, to stare it in the face, but somehow he had survived.  Somehow, he must have wanted to.  He must have changed.  When the war ended, Relena was the only thing he really recognized.  Sometimes, in the darkest times, memories of her face and spirit had kept him going.

He took another swallow of his cold coffee mechanically.  He had considered this from every angle as objectively as possible.  If he couldn't have her, at least he was not broken up about it.  Did he love the girl?  Maybe he did, in a way that he knew how, but he wasn't really sure.  It was all so confusing, and he had no idea what he really wanted.  It was best to leave well alone.

Something caught his eye as his gaze drifted up from his coffee until a face met his through the window of the café, and though it was certainly not Relena, it still caught his attention.  Out on the street, a man in a biker's black leather jacket did a double-take, amazement flashing through his large eyes.  Without a moment's hesitation, the man walked past the window and came in through the door.

Heero turned, becoming aware of the conversation of other people in the room and life in general suddenly, the sound of quiet conversations and the clinking of salt shakers, plates, silverware and glasses muting his thoughts of Relena.  In his mind she retreated and waited patiently for him to return to her, like she did in real life too, watching him from somewhere in the back of his head.   He ignored the princess as best he could and focused on the slightly bizarre image of Duo Maxwell crossing the wooden floors in heavy black boots, dark denim jeans and a black leather coat, his braid hanging over his right shoulder and longer than ever.  How long had it been since he had seen any of the other pilots?

"Well, if it isn't Heero Yuy," Duo said with a careless grin, accenting words in the wrong places as if meaning to draw attention to himself in that too-conspicuous way.  "If that _is still what you go by."_

Heero shrugged and turned on his stool, his own feet slipping to the floor as Duo gestured to a table in the dining area, quaint menus laid out for real customers.  "Where did you come from?" he said in a dark voice, barely registering interest, much less emotion, as he followed the other ex-pilot and sat down at the table.

Duo sat heavily across from him and sighed, crossing his arms in front of his chest.  "Still pretty hostile, aren't you?  Thinking everybody with interest in you is the enemy.  I don't know why I'm surprised."  He shook his head with a rueful smile.  "I've been doing business back and forth between Earth and Space.  I'm in town here because Relena Peacecraft is making a speech about trade embargos and I've an interest in that.  I thought I might say hello too.  I didn't expect to run into you, though if she's around I guess that shouldn't surprise me either.  You know, I haven't seen you since the end of the war.  How have you been?  Doing anything interesting?"

Heero sat across from Duo and felt only odd.  Duo tripped and stumbled with his speech, pouring out so many unnecessary words as he always had, talking to fill space.   It bothered him.  "No," Heero replied, crossing his arms as well.  Time had gone by, but Duo pretended like it hadn't, like they were old friends running into one another after in almost an expected fashion.  Heero had never had any friends, but he smiled ruefully.  He grudgingly considered Duo a comrade of sorts, and was even glad to see him, though he resented this forced idea of friendship.  Friendship was something Duo had always wanted, not him. For a time he had thought Duo pursued his company for his sake, because he thought that Duo, like so many other people, thought that Heero Yuy needed company.  Eventually he realized that Duo was the one who was lonely and desperate enough to try and be friends with someone like him.  But had it worked?  "Nothing interesting," he said.  He supposed he did care.

"I've heard some random rumors about you," Duo said thoughtfully, and to Heero's surprise he took a cigarette out of his jacket pocket and a lighter from the same source.  "Is it true you sleep around with girls you meet at hangouts and stuff now?"  With a practiced gesture, he put the cigarette into his mouth and poised to light it with two fingers, lifting his eyes to look at Heero over it.

"I think this is a no smoking section," Heero said.  

Duo blinked at him and put both cigarette and lighter away, stretching his shoulders and tossing his braid behind his back. He grinned.  "You're probably right."  He scratched his head and looked embarrassed. "I forget sometimes."

Heero wanted to ask when Duo had started smoking, but he didn't. He only sat silently as the ex-pilot of the Deathscythe removed his coat and hung it over the back of his chair.  Heero noticed that the other pilot still wore a priest's collar around his throat and silver crucifix hung around his neck on a silver chain, a little figure of Jesus crucified to the cross.  Not surprising really, considering what he had uncovered about the source of Duo's name, a survivor of the Maxwell Church Massacre.

"Well?" Duo said, pertaining to his original inquiry.  When Heero didn't immediately answer such a personal question, Duo grinned.  "Ah, come on, Heero.   I don't really mean to pry into your private life, but it just kind of shocked me.  Besides, we're both adults now.  It's not like it's that…"

"I'm not the only one who's having difficulty adjusting," Heero said flatly, because he hated beating around the bush, because he only knew how to communicate plainly, and yet to soften his response, he added, "Some of it is true, but I don't know what you've heard."

Duo's grin fell away.  Apparently, he had not really believed the rumors.  Perceiving Heero's seriousness, he just shook his head, elbows on the table.  "Wow."  His big blue eyes were hard to read, but Heero almost sensed something like pity, which aggravated him.  Duo didn't break eye contact with him either.  "I understand the urge, so I guess it's not so hard to believe, it's just _you_…  You meet these girls in one night and…?"  Heero's blank stare seemed to be answer enough.  Duo raised his eyebrows and shook his head wonderingly.  "Man, I guess I just always thought you had a thing for Relena.  Quatre seemed so sure."

Heero dropped his eyes, his fingers clenching tightly over the flat of the tabletop.  Duo was a damned liar for saying that he didn't mean to pry.  With the reminder all he could think of was the flash of Relena's eyes, the beautiful blue depths that drowned him deep under oceans and suffocated him in the sky.  He had been hoping for a distraction, not to share.

"Didn't you love her once?" Duo asked and Heero stiffened.  It was such a personal question, and it rolled oddly from Duo's lips.  "I always thought you at least cared about her, deep down anyway.  It's kind of hard to tell with you, but you're both so weird that after awhile I sorta thought it clicked.  I don't know."

"I don't really want to talk about it."  Memories drug him down deep.  His lips on her skin, kissing down her neck with his body between her legs and her arms wrapped around his back in the dark blue quiet of her room…so affectionate.  He shook his head to clear away the memories, scattering them like clouds.  The vision of her eyes lingered, two blue pools staring up at him, sweet when he had met her, frightened when he threatened to kill her, knowing when he got to know her, wise and independent, determined and brave and beautiful, and then, ah, filled with pleasure because of him, filled with quiet ecstasy as he held her body and made love to her.  "Do we have to talk about Relena?" he said a little hoarsely.

Duo blinked.  "I guess we don't have to.  Have you seen her since the end, though?"

"Yeah, I've seen her."

Duo flung one arm over the back of his chair and chuckled, smiling as he looked at Heero in an alarming fashion.  "Man, you still look like you're in love with her."  Heero swallowed, tensing. "You have that same look on your face, like you're somewhere else whenever she's mentioned.  What are you thinking about?"

His response cut in like a knife before Duo shut his mouth.  "The night I slept with her," Heero said flatly. "I told you I don't want to talk about it."

Duo kept grinning until the words sank in.  In an instant Duo's smile vanished in a look of shock.  A moment later his face had gone completely blank.  He just sat, unmoving for several minutes, and Heero said nothing.   They stared at one another in silence.  "Geez," Duo muttered at last, seemingly confounded, not breaking his gaze.  Perhaps he was debating between a congratulatory or reprimanding response.  "You're serious aren't you?  I can't believe…You slept with the minister, the crazy girl who chased you all over the universe?  I can't imagine…except with you it kind of makes sense.  Relena. When?  I mean how?" He winced, "I mean, _ugh_, don't tell me _how_, but did you really….?"

"Yeah," Heero cut in curtly.  "It happened a couple of weeks ago in her bedroom at the Peacecraft manor."

Duo rubbed his eyes, not speaking for several moments.  "With Zechs probably in the next room, huh?  You know what, don't answer that." The he suddenly laughed and clapped Heero on the shoulder.  "Come on, you look a little sick, buddy.  It couldn't have been _that_ bad.   So you two are actually together then?  Finally?"

Heero didn't say anything.

Duo looked at him with more consternation, eyebrows knit together.  "You love her, don't you?  I don't think you would have done that to Relena if you didn't. Unless…" His eyes widened.  "Jesus, did you walk out on her?" 

"It's not as simple as it seems," Heero said darkly.  Duo's mouth dropped open.  "I can't love her," he added.

Duo's eyes were wide.  "You had sex with the girl you've been obsessing about for years, one who _loves_ you, and then walked away?"  Maybe he wanted to laugh, but when Heero didn't reply, he looked almost angry.  "Have you even spoken to her since?"  The answer seemed obvious and Duo leaned forward suddenly, seething.  "She is in love with you, you know.  _Everybody_ knows that!  Is it fair to…? Why did you go?  Why don't you just…stick around and be her boyfriend?  Hell, why don't you marry her and raise a couple of kiddies?  She's not such a bad girl.  She's even very pretty.  I kinda like her myself now that I know her better, and I really don't think there's anyone more perfect for you." He rubbed his head.  "No?  Does she realize how badly you've treated her?  Probably doesn't.  She probably forgives you on principle."  He became quiet as Heero wasn't going to answer or admit guilt.  Slowly, he seemed to accept it, though he didn't seem happy about the situation.   "Damn.  I can't believe you had sex with her.  How was it?"

"I really don't want to talk about it, Duo."

"If you say so.  For her sake I hope she finds somebody else soon.  You're shaping up to be a real disappointment.  Poor girl.  Did you even say goodbye or did you just leave her hanging?"

"I left her a note."

Duo let out something like a guffaw and rolled his eyes.  "You're really something, Heero, do you know that?  Now come on, explain to me why you didn't stay with her.   You know she loves you, right?"

"She told me she did."  He hated these prying, pressured questions.  He felt bad enough.

"And you love her too, right?"

Heero was quiet to that.  "Why do you dress like a priest?"

Duo blinked in confusion.  "What the hell are you talking about?  I'm trying to have a conversation about your love life."  

"Except for the black leather and the braid, you dress like you carry a bible in your pocket and go to Church every Sunday, but I know you don't.  Just answer my question."

Duo rolled his shoulders and sat back, looking thoughtful.  "What I wear is none of your business.  It's a tribute, I guess.  Only the horrors of war really kept me from…" he paused.  "What does this have to do with you and Relena?"

"I don't believe in love," Heero said, "like I don't believe in God.  People always claim both are real until it fails them.  Lots of people want there to be a God and lots of people want to fall in love, but few really have any proof of either.  People just believe in things that make them feel better.  I don't mind people having hope.  I think people need to believe in good things to keep living.  I care about Relena.  I do.  I told her I loved her, but that doesn't mean we can build a life together.  The only thing I was made for is fighting.  I don't know how to do anything else.   I'm trying to keep living.  That's the only thing I can do right now."

"You don't believe or you don't understand?" Duo said, and Heero stiffened at so swift and so contrary a reply.  "What if you're wrong?  You could be passing up on something that would actually make you happy.  Don't lie to yourself.  I can look at you to see that you love her.  You just need a little faith."

"Now you sound like a religious man."

Duo looked offended.  "Don't turn this on me, Heero. You're dodging."  He grinned in that goofy, almost offensive way of his. "Admit that you're just _too scared, lazy or damn masochistic to give happiness a chance."_

"Are you calling me a coward?" he said darkly.

Duo's expression dropped and he looked Heero straight in the face.  "I would never call you that.  Let's just say you're a big cop-out when it comes to anything involving other people getting close to you.  If you love her…"

_Sovia__ Noventa also called you a coward._

His chest tightened.  "It's nice to believe in God when there aren't any wars, isn't it?" he said harshly.  "When nobody is hurting, when there's nothing horrible to bring reality crashing upon your head, you might think Someone out there actually cares about you.  But you and I both know what life is really be and how lost we are.  At least I can admit it.  You cling to the tokens of a faith because people who loved you were burned down in a church that they believed in and you can't.  Why don't you set your own affairs in order before you come blundering into my problems?"

Duo looked stricken.  His face was knotted up, contorted in a hurt, pained way.  Heero caught the fire in his eyes, the swift flash of painful memories dug up from an abyss by someone he wasn't aware knew of them.  "Fine," he said thickly.  "If that's the way you want it."

He got up with a painful scrape of the chair and threw his coat around his shoulders.  Heero watched him storm outside in a fury.  With an expression fixed in something like an angry grimace, Duo leaned against the wall of the shop next door, a lit cigarette in his mouth, his head sunk into the collar of his jacked and his arms crossed.  He looked near tears, perhaps not for what Heero had said, but the memories it brought. Heero swallowed, imagining a church building burning, and loving people dead or dying inside…and a friend mocking it.  A moment later Duo threw the cigarette to the ground, stepped on it, and walked away.

Heero sat alone in the café in silence, breathing in and out, his mind a complete blank.  Relena was still watching him in his head, and her eyes were sad now, as if asking "why did you do that?"   He didn't have an answer.  He already felt sorry, and worse, the only thing that made sense was that he did it to prove Duo right; he was mostly just scared.  Maybe he was jealous too, jealous of Duo for having something like a family to give him something to try and believe in, jealous of Duo for wanting to have friends and wanting himself and other people to be happy.

He sat for almost two hours, staring at nothing.   The television in the corner had been turned on, the sound buzzing in his ears.  Dishes were clattering.  The waitresses in the café and the cooks in the kitchen were giving him funny looks.  But, of course, he'd been there all morning.  As the minutes passed he sat completely still and it came to him suddenly that Duo was right.  He should talk to Relena, to clear things up if for no other reason.   He should talk to her just because he knew he wanted to see her.   Duo was going to hear her speech.  He could talk to her and then if he ran into Duo… At the same moment he heard Relena's voice.

"Trade embargos between the Earth and the Colonies…"

His eyes focused as he turned his head to look at the television screen.  There she was, the way he knew her always, poised and strangely beautiful, standing on a decorated stage without a podium, speaking into a microphone before thousands of people. She was dressed in a white business skirt and heeled shoes, a tapered white coat and a honey-colored blouse, her hair hanging straight down past her shoulders, that rich, wheat-colored hair that was thin and fine and clean, the hair that had gotten caught up in his fingers, clinging to his hands and lips.  Her eyes stared out over the crowd without blinking, firm and resolute, blue, sharp and penetrating, inward and outward, just like his eyes.  He had taught her to stare down the lions that way.  At least, she had picked it up from him.

He was on his feet and out the door before he gave it much thought. Too much thinking and his pride would keep him from going.  He didn't want to prove Duo right, but if he didn't think too much about it, he might not care in the end.  If she took him in, if he could say the things that he wanted to say…He grimaced and dashed away his thoughts.  The Relena in his head was smiling at him, his conscience and his desire personified into one, and he couldn't refuse her anymore.  All he thought of was his feet on the pavement, stepping forward.

She had finished her speech long before he arrived at the location, out in the plaza near City Hall, the sun shining brightly on the lawn and reflecting off the white folded chairs set up in rows on the pavement before the stage.  There were other speakers now, and occasional applause from the audience in the chairs, all which he ignored as he wandered around behind the stage and off to the side of the section squared off for the audience.  Security guards eyed him suspiciously, though they did not stop him.  However, when the techies hanging around the sides finally caught sight of him prowling around, a woman dressed all in black and wearing a headset waved him over.

"You're in the way," she said, crossing her arms.  "There are enough unhappy people and suspicious characters about that I can't let you wander around and I don't think you work here.  What do you want?" She watched the stage even as she talked to him.

"Is Relena Darilan still here?"  His mouth was dry.  Of course they wouldn't expose her to just anybody.  "I'm Heero Yuy."

The woman cocked an eyebrow.  "Gundam Pilot, huh?  She speaks well of you."  She looked him up and down appraisingly and he tried to ignore it.  "I can see why.  She's inside," the woman said, "freshening up before her closing statement.  Just go down the main hall.  First door on your left."

He left as soon as he knew where to go and entered the main complex.  It was empty inside, the hallways dark and dead, the dark blue tiles of the floor reflecting the light from outside as the only light illuminating the silent dark shadows. His footsteps echoed eerily.  All the personnel, of course, were outside helping with the demonstration.  He walked forward deliberately and stood in front of the first door on the left.  It was a ladies room, not a bathroom, probably complete with a ring-around vanity and velvet chairs.  Raising a fist, he knocked, hoping she was alone.

"Who is it?

He imagined her sitting in a stool in front of a mirror and turning around, but before he could answer, or even think of what to say, the door was softly opened and he found himself face to face with Relena, and in closer proximity than he intended.

She _was_ alone, but he hardly noticed.  The familiarity of her face caught him off guard.  Their eyes met instantly, only a foot apart.  They stared at one another, dark blue eyes focused on light blue and the other way around, both in shock.  An instant of that and it seemed the pressure was too great, for they both swallowed and flushed, looking away from the other as if torn by tremendous forces.   A faint rosy hue like blush tinted Relena's fair cheeks.  She held onto the doorway with her right hand, half leaning over her arm as she avoided looking at him.  He felt it too, the thing that made her afraid to look him in the face so uncharacteristically, a plunging in his gut that half drove him to the floor.  There was so much boiling beneath the surface that it was hard to stand still.

"What are you doing here, Heero?" she whispered, and seemed fighting to regain her composure. 

"We need to talk," he said. "Can I come in?"  He stepped in before she answered and she gave way, backing up away from him gracefully, almost fearfully.  The way she retreated as he advanced seemed something confused between a fight and a dance.  To give her space, he moved off to the side once he was inside, leaving her standing firmly in the middle of the room alone, watching him with her fists clenched at her sides, turning nothing but her head.

There were mirrors and velvet chairs.   He leaned against the counter and continued to avoid looking at her, though his heart pounded in his chest.  He wanted to speak, but thoughtful silence was what he knew best, and from the way she was looking at him, it seemed like she knew what he was thinking anyway.  He shivered a little, realizing that she knew him more intimately now than she ever had before, the same way he knew her.  His throat felt constricted.  He felt awkward.

"I didn't think I would see you again," she said in a hushed voice.  She always spoke first.  "I thought you were gone for good after…after you left."

"It's not what I want," he said, and somehow failed to say more, lowering his head, hands clutching the counter on either side of his body.  The feel of the counter under his hands grounded him as he leaned against it.  

"After what we did," she began, forming the words slowly.  Images crashed through his head and he found himself suddenly staring at her. She took a deep breath, blushing furiously.  "I sometimes wish we hadn't, and I sometimes wished you would call or come back immediately or stay away forever.  I've told you I loved you," she said.  "I think what happened has complicated that."  She sounded so sure, so certain, and he knew then that she had been thinking about it constantly with an agonized mind, that she was deeply hurt beneath the surface, because she loved him.  

"Relena…"

"Don't," she said, shaking her head, and the blonde hair shimmered in the lighting.  Her eyes were resolute, strong eyes, staring down lions.  "You've told me goodbye twice.  Don't say anything now if you're going to say that again.  I can't bear it anymore.  I want you to be whole, but not at my expense."

He pushed away from the counter and looked at her, standing straight with his arms hanging useless at his sides.  His eyes focused on her hands, soft, slender and delicate, but clenched into fists.  He suddenly remembered the feel of those hands clutching the back of his head, fingers digging into his hair.  "I'm sorry," he said sincerely, apologizing in earnest.  "I love you and I shouldn't have made you wonder about that."

She seemed to freeze, like a deer in the headlights, her hands loosening as she met his eyes suddenly.  He could almost see her breath catch in her throat, the thoughts and emotions whirling. 

Her aquamarine stare hit him in the stomach and his eyes skirted around her face.  His gaze dropped to her legs, slender and straight from her skirt to her heeled shoes; he remembered them wrapped around his torso, his hand on her hips.   He felt hot.  His cheeks were flushed. "Relena…"

She must have heard it in his voice because she covered her mouth with her hand and gasped in an appalled sort of way that covered his desire with waves of guilt and self-abhorrence.  "Is that all?" she asked.  "God, Heero, I love you too, but I'm not… I won't…" She took a deep breath.  "I already feel like that night was a mistake. If that's why you're here, please just…"

"That's the only night I've ever been really happy," he interrupted, lifting a hand imploringly.  He took long pauses between his sentences, gathering his thoughts.  "You're not like anyone else.  I felt like it couldn't work and that maybe it was a mistake, so I left, but maybe I'm not giving you enough credit.  I can't get you out of my head.  I didn't believe you could bring peace to the world, but peace came.  Maybe I should give this a chance too."

"You never give yourself enough credit," she whispered, and he shivered.  "You love me?" she asked, and met him in the eyes.

"Yeah," he said. 

She stepped toward him, her brow crinkling, her eyes softening.  When she was within arms length she stopped.  He remained still, tense and guarded, but all she did was take his hand with both of hers, and the feel of her soft fingers pressing into his skin caused his knees to stiffen.  There seemed no words to speak.  She didn't ask him what he meant.  He wasn't sure he even knew, but she seemed to understand him.  Looking into her eyes, he thought she might be as scared as he felt.

"If you stay," she whispered, and seemed at a loss for words.  He wished he could read her mind, but all he could do was look at her and guess.  "Do you mean to be in a relationship with me?"

"Yeah."

"Then we could do what we did again…"

His heart leapt and his body tightened.  "You want to…?"

She blushed.  "Well I…" She paused.  It was torture.  When she looked up at him, her eyes shimmered faintly through her smile.  "I don't want that to be the reason you would stay," she said.  "Or the basis of our relationship, but I won't deny that when I think about you I think of that night.  I want to treat you right is all."  She titled her head, her hair falling over her face, and stepped close enough to him that he could feel her presence like electricity throughout his entire body.  His hand curved naturally around her waist.

He wanted to tell her he was willing to give this a try for many reasons besides that, but instead he found himself leaning forward and down without thinking, stooping and tilting his head to take her lips with his own, kissing her softly.  Her head lifted naturally as he did it and they both straightened, her hair falling away so he could see her face.  She was kissing him back, eyes closed, trembling a little, and he didn't know whether his bones were turning to ash from emotional heat or if his insides were really burning with fire.  With effort, he surrendered to it, shutting his eyes, and felt the world spin and slip sideways and down, spiraling into a world of heat and flame, dragging him bodily with it so that he knew his heart was bursting.

When they broke the kiss he gasped.  "I'm sorry," he repeated, and hardly knew for what. 

Tears leaked out of her eyes, sweet, crystalline tears that welled up and splashed over her cheekbones.  His mouth parted silently in answer, his hand lifting to her face to wipe away the evidence of emotion.  A moment later and she completely fell into his arms, her face pressed into his shoulder.  He hugged her awkwardly at first, and then tightened his grasp with a feeling of fulfillment, stroking the tears out of her with his hand on the back of her head.  She didn't sob or shake or wail.  She hardly seemed upset.  The tears drained out of her only as liquid, squeezed from her eyes like juice from a fruit.  "Are you staying?" she asked into his shirt.

Her face was red when he kissed her again, but she kissed back, their tongues meeting somewhere between. To speak he had to break away.  "I don't know if this will work," he said.  "But if you want to love me, I think I'm ready to let you…"

She stifled his words with another kiss, more urgent than the others, and he automatically wrapped his hands around the small of her back, crinkling her blouse in his hands.  Breaking away again, she breathed out, staring up into his eyes through her lashes.  "You're not like anybody else in the world, Heero," she whispered, touching his face.  "I don't think I could ever love or respect anybody as much as I do you."

"Yeah," he said, and meant it as a reciprocal of what she said to him, which she seemed to understand.  He couldn't believe he was letting her touch his face, but she did it so naturally he hardly questioned the contact.  "What do we do now?" he said in a bare whisper, and found that he was breathing hard.

She laughed, a gleam in her eyes, and slipped her hands on the inside of his jacket to reach around his waist and pull him close.  He was startled, but again he let her, surprised by how fast he was getting used to this.  "I have to give my closing statement," she said with a touch more severity, "but, Heero, afterwards I want to have you to myself for awhile."

The blood rushed out of his head and he found himself smiling a real smile.  Relena's eyes took it in with surprise, but then she smiled back, her teeth flashing as their faces met again.  He lifted her body as he kissed her, pulling her flush up against him, inspired by the way her body seemed to mould to his so perfectly.  She kissed him with energy and abruptly he laughed.  Then she laughed and his heart flared golden, bright and yellow as the sun.  

Relena grabbed his hands, pulling him forward.  Breaking away from her mouth, he followed her, opening the door for her and seeing her down the hallway with a barely contained rush of excitement.  When they tumbled out into the hallway together, they heard a commotion from outside the building, of people moving around in what seemed like a great rush and flurry of energy.  

"What's going on?" Relena murmured, stepping forward.  She was the Vice Foreign Minister.

She was also Relena.  Heero grabbed her arm just above the wrist and held her back in an iron-tight grip.  She halted under his insistence, yielding to his authority for her own safety.  Lacking a gun, he simply moved her behind him and walked next to the wall toward the outside, curious as to what was going on.

Out in the plaza people were standing up out of their chairs, some of them standing _on_ their chairs.  Dozens were leaving the area, angry it seemed like, and a wave of muttering voices and some shouting ripped through the crowd and crashed into Heero and Relena's startled faces.

As one, their eyes turned to the podium.  The man speaking was a delegate from Western Europe, but he merely seemed to be trying to calm the riled crowd.  Looking at Relena and noting her surprise, he figured none of this had anything to do with her.  Her eyes and mouth were open. 

He raised his voice to be heard over the din.  "When are you supposed to give your closing statement?" he asked her.

"Not for awhile," she said, proud and pale with her face turned intently on the crowd.  "I don't understand what is happening."

Abruptly, the crowd roared in fury, but they both missed what was said on stage.  People were moving now, climbing up and over their chairs, trampling other people. Voices shouted in alarm.  Security was out in force.

"It's just about Trade Embargos…" Relena whispered.  "Have they lost their minds?  It's just about…"

A gun shot went off in the air.

Screams reverberated in the aftermath.  Heero and Relena both snapped their heads around as people began screaming and running now, tearing through the aisles, knocking the chairs over.  Heero swore as dozens of civilians headed for the doorway they were standing in.  Quickly, Heero pulled Relena out of the hallway and they both burst into the sunlight, tramping down the stairs in and even stride.   The girl at his side was beauty itself, the sunlight glinting off her hair as she ran with purpose rather than fear toward the center of the confusion.   Relena was shouting over the crowd, waving her hands.  Heero could only watch her.

"What is going on here?  Senator Baldwin! Was someone shot?  What is going on?"

Another gunshot fired, this one seemingly from the crowd, probably into the air by a panicked civilian, but it only increased the chaos.  Relena and Heero hardly slowed as they made for the stage, running side by side, Heero standing protectively in between Relena and the maddened crowd.  Security let them through.  

The people remaining were clawing at each other, making it hard for anyone to get away.  Heero caught sight of a man in a brown coat moving deliberately through the crowd amidst the shouting and the panic.  He seemed out of place, wild about the eyes like a loose cannon, angry without a cause, stalking like a panther, tensing as the panic mounted.  Was he reaching into his coat?

"We're not going to let some stuffy politicians tell us where we can trade!"

"Have you gone mad?  This is a peaceful demonstration."

"Watch what you're doing!"

"Oh my God, call an ambulance!  He's bleeding to death!"

 "…it's just like the old Federation laws…!"

Relena put her hand on the stage, getting ready to heave herself up above the crowd where everyone could see her.  Heero knew what she intended, to get to the microphone, regardless of the panic, in full view of anyone with a gun, and try to calm down the audience.  

"It's too dangerous," he said, grasping her about the waist and breathing in her ear.  "Relena, don't.  Please."

"Someone has to restore order here, Heero!" she said.  Suddenly, she turned in his grip and he found her lips pressed suddenly against his, in full view of anyone who was watching.  "Please," she gasped, fingers trailing along his jaw.  "This is senseless.  Help me before…"

Gunshots rang out over the crowd and before he and Relena ducked, Heero saw people falling, dying perhaps, dropping out of view as people fled in a panic from the man in the brown coat, who was waving two guns in either hand wildly on the corner of the stage.  A little girl was lying on her face by a tree.  Heero's breath caught.  Dead?  Security was moving in on him, but the guns were still smoking.  More gunshots sounded, from another location, shot toward the man on the stage.  Police?  An angry citizen taking the law into his own hands?

Looking over the crowd he suddenly caught sight of Duo Maxwell gesturing sharply to the security guards, barking orders angrily, his braid swinging.  A moment later and their eyes met across the crowd.  Heero was about to shout to him, but Duo's eyes widened and he shouted first, leaping forward toward Heero suddenly in something like alarm.  Whatever he said was lost in a burst of pain and noise.  Blood exploded before his eyes and Heero wrenched his gaze away.  Relena gave a cry and fell into his arms.

He felt it before he understood it, a sharp penetration through his body, in his chest.  He had no idea where it came from, but it was a damn powerful shot.  It had more expulsion than an ordinary gun, more force and more deadly accuracy, if it was aimed at all.  The names of several weapons that could have fired that shot, all illegal, ran through his head. A shot like that could go through several obstructions.

He tried to speak and blood came up out of his throat. He coughed, closing his eyes, and realized suddenly how heavy Relena was.  He knew somehow what had happened and tried to support her even as his own strength gave way.  They had both been shot by the same bullet by being so close together.  The shouting and panic of the crowd seemed strangely distant, the trampling of feet echoing in his ears as he sank downward.  Through the haze in his eyes he saw the brown-coated man apprehended, but then he lost sight of everything as he found himself kneeling in the grass, coughing up more blood.  Relena fell limply over his arms, sliding out of his grip and onto the ground, her hair strewn about her face, the blonde a sharp contrast to the green blades of evenly cut grass.   Her cream-colored blouse and white coat were covered in blood.  His or hers?  There was a wound in her chest.  There was also a wound in his. His eyes latched onto her hair, and the staring eyes.

"Heero…"

Senseless.  His head swam and he clenched his eyes shut, but her voice penetrated the fog.  _Live, he thought.  _Live_._

He struggled to hear her panicked whispers.  "Heero, I can't see anything.  There's just light everywhere, blinding like the sun.  Heero?"  She was crying.  She sounded so lost, so alone.  He couldn't speak with the blood clogging his throat.  "I don't want to go alone," she cried.  "Oh God, Oh God."  She was in pain.  He could tell she was in pain, and so afraid.  Hand in the grass, he struggled to touch her, his finger finding the flesh of her arm.  "Heero, where are you?"  She was quiet as he coughed, doubled over on his knees, blood seeping through his clothes, knowing the weakness in his head was from more than just blood loss.  "Heero," he heard he say again in the barest whisper, more still and quiet than he had ever heard her.  "It's not so bad now.  I almost think…"  She trailed off.

The world spun crazily and he collapsed on his face, breathing soil and grass in through his nose.  The pain was unreal.  He wasn't sure how long he was like that, blood coming up out of his mouth as he coughed, each cough doubling the pain in his torso.  Abruptly he felt hands touching him, turning him over.  He couldn't breathe.  He struggled, trying to cough, to think.  His eyes opened blurrily, seeing shapes as if through a waterfall.

"Duo…" he croaked.  Arms gathered him up, lifting his head and shoulders off the ground.

"Shhh, Heero, don't talk.  Hang with me.  The medics are on their way."

"I'm sorry for what I said to you…"

"It's okay.  I forgive you.  Forget about it.  Just stop talking."

Air came into Heero's lungs, and blood too.  Everything was so quiet, but he was suddenly glad someone was there.  He thought he was being held, but he wasn't sure.  He looked up, the sunlight gleaming down around the shadow that Duo made as he bent over him.  "She's gone, isn't she?" he choked out.  His chest tightened with the thought.  He couldn't protect her.  He knew Duo wouldn't tell him Relena was dead, not now.  If he survived, he would wake up to hear it.  But he didn't think he was going to survive.  With that thought, it hardly seemed to matter.  "Tell me, please.  I'm going too."

"Don't talk like that.  She's dead, Heero, but you're not yet, so stop talking."

Pain gripped him and his muscles contracted in Duo's grasp as he gritted his teeth to keep from crying out.  Air escaped his lungs and suddenly he became aware that he was suffocating in blood.  He panicked instinctively as he fought to breathe, fighting for his life despite every desire that told him he should want to go with her, to follow Relena into death.  But he didn't know what he would face there.  It was one thing to want to be killed in battle, but now that he was shot, the air escaping his lungs and the wild beating of his heart frightened him.  It wasn't the pain.  He was dying.  His body was failing.  He couldn't breathe.  He couldn't think.  He didn't know where he was going.

Oblivion.  _No, no.  _He clenched his eyes shut.  He couldn't imagine it.  

He cried, convulsing, struggling to make himself understood.  Air filled his lungs suddenly, blood flecking his lips.  Duo was still there, watching him, telling him to relax.  "I want to go where she's going," he gasped out, trying to see more clearly.

"Heero…"  Duo's eyes seemed more mature, less child-like, than usual.  All he could really make out was his eyes and face a bit of the white collar around his throat.

Desperation coated Heero's voice thickly, but with great effort he managed to speak.  "Duo, listen to me," he said with all the determination had had left, latching the Prussian blue eyes that had cowed so many on Duo's face.  "You have to pray for me," he said as deeply as he knew how.  "Please.  I'm tired of being alone."  He convulsed suddenly, his eyes clenching shut.  Pain like he had never known seized him like the fangs of a serpent so that he could not hear himself cry out, though he knew he screamed.  As it subsided, his eyes opened and rolled, falling backward, sinking through the memories of his life.  He couldn't hear or see anything.  He wasn't sure if he was breathing or not even.  He could make sense of nothing, but he looked for himself, trying to hold on to what was him.  In fervent whispers he repeated, "I'm not afraid.  I'm not afraid."  His limbs were heavy, stiff, his voice cracked.  "Relena."  Or did he only think it?  Desperately, he fought, trying to keep the light from dying, from fading away, but darkness was creeping in from all sides of his vision, a night deeper then space and without a single star, closing his view of the living world.  "I want to be loved."

"You are, Heero," he thought he heard Duo whisper.  "You are loved.  You can stop fighting.  It's okay now.  Just relax."

He swallowed, trying to heed what he heard, and felt strength of will, if not of body, return to him.  From somewhere came a clear thought or idea of who he was, what he had done, how he had lived, and he accepted it simply.  He took a breath, feeling a quiet calmness pour over him.  He had no more strength to keep on fighting.  He allowed himself to lie still.  

"Goodbye, Heero," he heard Duo's voice say softly, sounding so far away.

And then he died….

…


End file.
